After I Died
by NinjaMoogle
Summary: Little drabblets concerning who characters might have been when they were alive and how it affects them now that they're dead. Contains crossovers. Third chapter: Ukitake Jyuushirou.
1. The Devil Is An Angel Too

Nothing recognizable here belongs to me; all credit goes to their respective owners. Currently rated K, but may very possibly go up later. Concrit is lovely, if you please. I know crossovers like this have been done before, but hopefully this is unique enough to stand out. May add extra chapters as the inspiration hits, which may not be often, as school takes precedence.

-oOo-

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Renji knew when he first saw the kid that the midget was different from the many others he had met in his afterlife. Every now and then, during his time in Rukongai and even now in Seireitei, he would get the oddest sense of Déjà vu. He would see a face and think it was someone from before, when he was still alive. Sometimes people did things, from the most outrageous stunts to just a slight shake of the head, disapproval mixing with amusement, and he would accidentally call them a name not their own.

The first time Iba put on those stupid sunglasses, he almost cried. _Partner, brother, friend, aibou, I'll find you someday. I'll find you, and we'll take blondie out for a drink. Which one? Hell, both. The boss can hold his drink but she can't and she'll make that frown of hers, and be all "Don't drink on the job". So cute, she was never cut out for that life…but she knew it and we, or should I say "I", teased her for it mercilessly. What I wouldn't give to have you both beside me now._

And the first time he caught a glimpse of shock-white hair, like snow on the walls of the Crater, he thought it was just another one of _those_. Renji looked over, and stared. Back ramrod-straight with shoulders held taut, the boy's posture screamed confidence, enough to take on the world and win. The kind of back that soldiers would follow into death, onto the battlefield of a country far from their own, and know that they were being led to victory, no matter how gruesome. A feeling of hopeful dread, dreadful hope, spead through him. _It can't be…but if it is…_ The shrimp was talking to Momo, turned his head to give her a brusque retort when she called him Shiro-chan, and the sight of it was like a punch in the gut.

Clean, sharp features, more childish than he remembered, but with eyes as old as the world and icy green, _mako_ green. Eyes that could pierce the heart as readily as a bullet and brought the powers of the world to their knees. Eyes that flicked back to him, then away, like a glimpse from the corner of his eye, but then the gaze was back, if only for a few seconds, and despite himself he was suddenly snapping to attention, confused passerby throwing him odd looks. He may not have been army, much less SOLDIER, but you didn't just _stand_ there in the presence of the General. In the space of a second the tattooed redhead felt himself recognized, appraised, acknowledged, then it was back to Momo and complaining about the nickname.

Nerves still strung high on the adrenaline shock, he only relaxed fractionally before making good his escape. _It's all right, he's sane. He was fine before. Weird, but reasonable, before Hojo, before the Nibelheim incident, before Jenova. So long as Kurotsuchi doesn't get his tainted claws in him, we won't have to worry about him potentially obliterating Seireitei._

And so Reno would keep an eye on Sephiroth, because they didn't need a Meteor here too, and besides, Tseng would kill him if he didn't do his job right.

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-oOo-


	2. Whispers in the Dark

Finals and term papers _should_ be eating my life. Instead, I crank out a second chapter. I'm gonna hate myself for this later, I just know I am. Nothing recognizable here belongs to me; all credit goes to their respective owners.

-oOo-

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Grimmjow couldn't remember who he had been.

He didn't know why the question irked him so. All of his life as a human had been left by the wayside like a soiled rag, something not to be touched ever again. Hollows didn't need their human souls, and those that kept even a scrap of their human selves were usually the first to fall. The morals and ethics carried by most humans made Hollows weak enough to ensure that they were eaten by their own kind early on in their undeath. Some kept enough of their humanity to, folly of follies, _seek out_ the shinigami in some insane attempt at suicidal self-sacrifice, that they might not bring harm to the living. These were few and far between though, and the great majority of hollows had their hearts consumed by the beast within before their mask had even been formed.

Thus it was that Grimmjow was vexed beyond belief that his past life haunted him so. Visions would flash in his mind, both in times inappropriate and in the silence by his lonesome. They would play as though he were experiencing them himself, crystal clear, or colorless and faded, time skipping back and forth, the sound like a broken record. Sometimes they would be from his point of view, and at other times he would be a spectator to the scene. These…visions?...memories?...sparked a vague longing in a soul that he had thought crushed long ago.

He recognized himself easily enough. Blue hair, longer and darker then, fell into spikes rather than its current tendency to fluff. His body was only slightly less toned than his arrancar physique and the shape of his face was the same. The fact that he wielded a sword made Grimmjow bare his teeth in approval; not many humans had the balls to carry a good blade nowadays. _Is it even the same? It seems like so long ago…or has it even happened yet?_

The others he didn't recognize, or he did and had just forgotten. _Forgot, forgot, how could you FORGET…_ No amount of images thrust upon him were enough to make him remember the scantily-clad redheaded girl with the gun, the angry old man with the ugly face, the pale young boy with a big forehead and dark hair pulled back into a tight queue. _Loved her, hated him, teased the kid._ He didn't remember a life underground, in caverns with a heavy stifling ceiling, digging every day and getting his allotted amount of food. _How I despised and feared that ceiling, more than anything else_. He felt nothing upon seeing the great red machine, stolen by his own hands and turned to battle against those who sought to subdue his spirit and drive him back underground. _And that, above all else, was unacceptable._ He couldn't recall the wasteland that nearly drew even with Hueco Mundo for its lifelessness, only scattered pockets of life here and there. _But it had the sky, and the sight of the endless heavens was a prize worth dying for._

But it was the boy, ragged cloak about his shoulders and later covered with a blue jacket, that struck him the most. _Because he did what we couldn't; he was everything we could never be_. Try as he might, Grimmjow could not remember, and every time he tried and failed was accompanied by a pain akin to swallowing glass shards. He _hated_ this boy, this memory that caused him so much pain. _It is not hate_. He could not be feeling this, he had no heart, no soul to feel such pain! But try as he might, he was still bombarded by the pain of the visions, of _him_, of that trusting smile that made everything seem possible, of a small back that he would follow into the jaws of darkness without a second thought.

Perhaps this wasn't Hueco Mundo, but Hell, and his punishment was his own memories.

It was getting to the point where the arrancar was unable to stand it any longer. Perhaps he should go to Aizen, have him scour his mind clean of these memories, this detested longing for his life. The memories rustled through his consciousness at this thought, and he found himself rejecting the idea even as it came upon him. _Hell_, _no. You can't get rid of me, of yourself, that easily._ If nothing else, he should be able to defeat himself and smother the last flames of a soul whose ashes should have scattered to the winds a lifetime ago.

_Bring it, bastard. Who the hell do you think I am?_

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-oOo-


	3. Medicine

Midterms are such wonderful invitations to procrastinate. I really, really shouldn't take that invitation. *shakes fist* Damn myself for taking nineteen credit hours!

As always, nothing belongs to me. If it did, I wouldn't be struggling through college, now would I?

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**.oOo.**

To say that the inhabitants of Seireitei were baffled would be putting it lightly. Unohana-taichou, however, was the most confused of all. For over a century, she had done all in her power to ease the pain of Ukitake Jyuushirou as he suffered through tuberculosis. Whenever she would come to him with a new medicine that she hoped would cure him once and for all, he would gracefully accept it from her with a gentle smile and say "It won't work you know."

And it wouldn't. How he knew, Unohana would never understand. When she asked him about it once, he told her that there was but one cure for him, held by but one, and only one, person. This did not keep the healer-captain from doing her best to find a final cure though. Surely, with all of her years of experience and wisdom, she should be able to find something!

It was surprising, then, to her and all others, when a traveling medicine peddler from the far reaches of Rukongai, allowed into Seireitei proper in order to restock on basic supplies, wandered over to the Thirteenth Division headquarters and made a scene that nearly sent the Court of Pure Souls into an uproar.

Upon reaching the gates of the relatively secluded Thirteenth Division complex, the man gently set down his medicine box and strode purposefully up to the gates. Raising a large fist, he pounded on the wooden gates and yelled,

"OKITA SOUJI! GET YOUR PAMPERED, UNDERWORKED, LILY-WHITE ASS OUT HERE NOW, OR SO HELP ME I'LL BREAK DOWN THESE DOORS AND DRAG YOU OUT MYSELF!"

This had nearly all of the division guards on him in an instant, but the medicine seller merely sneered at the show of power before, to everyone's complete surprise, he was barreled into by an ecstatically laughing Ukitake. The guards and other onlookers could only watch in wonder as their elegant, refined, sickly captain squeezed the stranger so hard they thought the poor man's ribs would crack, and then proceeded to capture and play with the man's long ponytail. To their utter amazement, the medicine seller gently returned the hug and drew himself away long enough to retrieve a small white packet from his sleeve.

"I brought your medicine. Sorry I took so long to find you."

Jyuushirou smiled up at him, shaking his head. His unbound white hair swished around him in a soft susurration, the color visibly darkening the longer he stood by this enigmatic stranger, slowly graying to a deep violet-black. "No matter how many years of separation, you are here now, and that is all that matters." He rested his forehead against the other man's chest, a happy sigh escaping, and it was then the onlookers noticed that he had not coughed once, at all, and showed no signs of laboured breath.

It was that day that Unohana learned of the healing properties of a broken soul made whole once more.

**.oOo.**

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